Rachel Persitz's mother Bella Persitz

My mother Bella Persitz. The photo was taken on her birthday in 1915 in Kiev. My mother was born in 1892 in Chernobyl. She didn't get any education. She lived in Chernobyl with her parents and helped her mother with the housekeeping and gardening. When my mother turned 18 she left her parents' house. My grandfather Haim was very ill and couldn't provide for his big family any longer. His sons and his older daughter Rohl were living separately already, and my mother decided to go to Kiev. She became a seamstress in a tailor's shop, owned by Abram Persitz, the older brother of my father, Moshe Persitz. My father lived with his older brother Abram and worked in his shop. He met my mother in this shop in 1910. My mother worked in the same shop and rented a room in Abram's house. They fell in love with each other. My parents got married in 1911. They had a traditional Jewish wedding, although it was only a small one. The bride and bridegroom stood under the chuppah at the synagogue in Schekavitskaya street [this synagogue is still there]. There was a rabbi, and the closest relatives and friends were there. Abram paid for my mother's wedding gown and the rings. He covered all the other expenses for the wedding, too. This was all his support for the young couple. He probably wasn't very happy about Moshe marrying a poor girl whose parents didn't give her any dowry. In the beginning my parents rented a small room in Podol. In 1912, after my older sister Genia was born, they moved to a small apartment in Khorevaya Street. I was born there on 22nd July 1915.